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I wasn't aware they were controversial. I had to google to find some arguments against pie charts https://www.data-to-viz.com/caveat/pie.html https://www.data-

by navls 3y ago

I wasn't aware they were controversial. I had to google to find some arguments against pie charts https://www.data-to-viz.com/caveat/pie.html https://www.data-to-viz.com/caveat/pie.html

_dain_ 3y ago
God I'd forgotten about that awful Steve Jobs one: https://s3.amazonaws.com/edwardtufte.com/pie_apple_marketshare.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/edwardtufte.com/pie_apple_marketsha... (the green segment is made to look larger than the purple one because of a perspective trick)
chefandy 3y ago
Even then, it's pretty ridiculous to say that this is a valid argument against using pie charts. It's a valid argument against using them when you've got multiple similarly sized slices, or some other thing that would make them the wrong choice, but there are great reasons to not use most visualizations in incompatible contexts. Just like anything else in graphic design, these things should be used when they are better at conveying a point than other methods and not used when they aren't. Coming up with rules like this is like saying "never use garlic" and then coming up with every dish from chocolate pudding to iced tea that's not made better with garlic. Use the right tool for the job. It's design "rules" like this that will inspire some insecure "Ha! Gotcha! So-called expert!" type of nerd rant from a developer in a meeting where I'm presenting work I've done as a designer.
- PheonixPharts 3y ago
  Can you give me a single example where a pie chart would better convey information than a table? The only visualization more useless than a pie-chart is a 3d pie-chart.
  - chefandy 3y ago
    See my response to your comment above. You're ignoring the reason data visualizations exist in the first place.
    - PheonixPharts 3y ago
      > You're ignoring the reason data visualizations exist in the first place. My opinion on pie-charts and poor visualization comes from years of studying data visualization, not ignoring it. Would you argue that Tufte doesn't value data visualization since he holds the same views?
      - chefandy 3y ago
        Tufte can back up what he says with reason and examples, rather than repeatedly making the same assertion. Just saying "well Tufte says so" is a pretty blatant appeal to authority.
  - _dain_ 3y ago
    >Can you give me a single example where a pie chart would better convey information than a table? there's a specific type of pie chart that's good: a "clock chart". this is when you're depicting how long some contiguous sequence of events took as a fraction of a whole duration. you map the start and end to the 12 o'clock position, and the intervening ones wrap around clockwise. e.g. the history of the universe with the big bang at the top, then formation of stars, galaxies, planet earth, dinoaurs etc as you go around clockwise. then human history is a tiny slice at like 30 seconds to midnight or whatever it is. this works because it piggybacks on people's existing strong spatio-temporal intuition for clock faces. time is a flat circle.
    - PheonixPharts 3y ago
      I'll concede that this is a reasonable case.
- _dain_ 3y ago
  pie charts really are inferior in practically every context though.
ggregoire 3y ago
> In the adjacent pie chart, try to figure out which group is the biggest one [...]. You will probably struggle to do so and this is why pie charts must be avoided. It's not that bad when the purpose of the pie is not to figure out which group is the biggest. I find the pie pretty appropriate when the goal is to figure out - if all the groups are more or less the same - if one or several groups are way bigger than the other groups - if one or several groups are way smaller than the other groups Not saying pies are the best for this (bar charts work well too), just saying it works well. > try to order them by value I mean, why would you not order them already inside the chart? So that the reader doesn't have to do it.
- PheonixPharts 3y ago
  > It's not that bad when the purpose of the pie is not to figure out which group is the biggest But it's not better than a sorted table: - A (90%) - B (5.1%) - C (4.9%) Which group there is biggest? Which is the smallest? > why would you not order them already inside the chart? What's the implicit ordering of a pie chart? It's not hard to define one that makes sense (start at midnight) but it's not implicit in the chart, it needs to be explained to the viewer. Since similar sized portions of the chart are hard to distinguish, there's no way to be visually certain that you are correctly understanding the ordering.
PheonixPharts 3y ago
> I had to google to find some arguments against pie charts Can you give me any arguments for pie charts? I also disagree with that article that the best alternative to a pie chart is a bar chart. Whenever your doing any sort of data visualization you should always ask "How does this representation convey information that cannot be represented in a table?" Can you provide an example where a pie chart would tell you more than could be conveyed in a table? Tables are incredibly information dense, have an unambiguous ordering and can easily scale to expressing 5-6 dimensions of information in the exact same space that a pie-chart can convey. Tables are limited in that they work best when representing a very small number of observations, but pie-charts and bar-charts share this same problem without any of the benefits of tables. If a table won't cut it, then you probably have enough data that a scatter plot is your best choice. Scatter plots also can easily handle an extra 2-3 dimensions (color, scale, and shape) of information.
- chefandy 3y ago
  Charts are useful for quickly conveying relationships within data, not for presenting data as raw information. They're useful specifically because they're not extremely information dense. If you're making video media, an article, an infographic, a poster, slides for a presentation, or anything similar, tables usually have far less impact and don't convey relationships and context well. Whether charts are the right tool for the job is a communication question. What are you trying to communicate, why, to whom, and in what context? While it perennially annoys the hell out of many in the engineering mindset, people find strategies that take these distinctions into account valuable, and that's why visual designers exist.
  - PheonixPharts 3y ago
    > Charts To be clear, I'm specifically talking about pie-charts and not all charts. There are plenty of cases where a chart conveys information appropriate to the task. The relationships are visually represented in a table, the minimum table being just a vertical list. A table can be more, but it isn't required. Additionally the relationships in a table are more clearly represented in most all cases. Information density also doesn't imply that you most be conveying a lot of information, it relates to the efficiency of your use of visual space. There are no instances (aside for the other example of a clock plot) where the relationships in your data (since you don't want to use information) are not more clearly conveyed with a list then a pie chart. > and that's why visual designers exist. I've spent quite a bit of time working with and talking to visual designers and have yet to meet one who think pie-charts are an effective tool for visual communication.

by navls 3y ago

I wasn't aware they were controversial. I had to google to find some arguments against pie charts https://www.data-to-viz.com/caveat/pie.html https://www.data-to-viz.com/caveat/pie.html

_dain_ 3y ago

God I'd forgotten about that awful Steve Jobs one: https://s3.amazonaws.com/edwardtufte.com/pie_apple_marketshare.jpg https://s3.amazonaws.com/edwardtufte.com/pie_apple_marketsha... (the green segment is made to look larger than the purple one because of a perspective trick)

chefandy 3y ago

Even then, it's pretty ridiculous to say that this is a valid argument against using pie charts. It's a valid argument against using them when you've got multiple similarly sized slices, or some other thing that would make them the wrong choice, but there are great reasons to not use most visualizations in incompatible contexts. Just like anything else in graphic design, these things should be used when they are better at conveying a point than other methods and not used when they aren't. Coming up with rules like this is like saying "never use garlic" and then coming up with every dish from chocolate pudding to iced tea that's not made better with garlic. Use the right tool for the job. It's design "rules" like this that will inspire some insecure "Ha! Gotcha! So-called expert!" type of nerd rant from a developer in a meeting where I'm presenting work I've done as a designer.

PheonixPharts 3y ago
Can you give me a single example where a pie chart would better convey information than a table? The only visualization more useless than a pie-chart is a 3d pie-chart.
- chefandy 3y ago
  See my response to your comment above. You're ignoring the reason data visualizations exist in the first place.
  - PheonixPharts 3y ago
    > You're ignoring the reason data visualizations exist in the first place. My opinion on pie-charts and poor visualization comes from years of studying data visualization, not ignoring it. Would you argue that Tufte doesn't value data visualization since he holds the same views?
    - chefandy 3y ago
      Tufte can back up what he says with reason and examples, rather than repeatedly making the same assertion. Just saying "well Tufte says so" is a pretty blatant appeal to authority.
- _dain_ 3y ago
  >Can you give me a single example where a pie chart would better convey information than a table? there's a specific type of pie chart that's good: a "clock chart". this is when you're depicting how long some contiguous sequence of events took as a fraction of a whole duration. you map the start and end to the 12 o'clock position, and the intervening ones wrap around clockwise. e.g. the history of the universe with the big bang at the top, then formation of stars, galaxies, planet earth, dinoaurs etc as you go around clockwise. then human history is a tiny slice at like 30 seconds to midnight or whatever it is. this works because it piggybacks on people's existing strong spatio-temporal intuition for clock faces. time is a flat circle.
  - PheonixPharts 3y ago
    I'll concede that this is a reasonable case.
_dain_ 3y ago
pie charts really are inferior in practically every context though.

ggregoire 3y ago

> In the adjacent pie chart, try to figure out which group is the biggest one [...]. You will probably struggle to do so and this is why pie charts must be avoided. It's not that bad when the purpose of the pie is not to figure out which group is the biggest. I find the pie pretty appropriate when the goal is to figure out - if all the groups are more or less the same - if one or several groups are way bigger than the other groups - if one or several groups are way smaller than the other groups Not saying pies are the best for this (bar charts work well too), just saying it works well. > try to order them by value I mean, why would you not order them already inside the chart? So that the reader doesn't have to do it.

PheonixPharts 3y ago
> It's not that bad when the purpose of the pie is not to figure out which group is the biggest But it's not better than a sorted table: - A (90%) - B (5.1%) - C (4.9%) Which group there is biggest? Which is the smallest? > why would you not order them already inside the chart? What's the implicit ordering of a pie chart? It's not hard to define one that makes sense (start at midnight) but it's not implicit in the chart, it needs to be explained to the viewer. Since similar sized portions of the chart are hard to distinguish, there's no way to be visually certain that you are correctly understanding the ordering.

PheonixPharts 3y ago

> I had to google to find some arguments against pie charts Can you give me any arguments for pie charts? I also disagree with that article that the best alternative to a pie chart is a bar chart. Whenever your doing any sort of data visualization you should always ask "How does this representation convey information that cannot be represented in a table?" Can you provide an example where a pie chart would tell you more than could be conveyed in a table? Tables are incredibly information dense, have an unambiguous ordering and can easily scale to expressing 5-6 dimensions of information in the exact same space that a pie-chart can convey. Tables are limited in that they work best when representing a very small number of observations, but pie-charts and bar-charts share this same problem without any of the benefits of tables. If a table won't cut it, then you probably have enough data that a scatter plot is your best choice. Scatter plots also can easily handle an extra 2-3 dimensions (color, scale, and shape) of information.

chefandy 3y ago
Charts are useful for quickly conveying relationships within data, not for presenting data as raw information. They're useful specifically because they're not extremely information dense. If you're making video media, an article, an infographic, a poster, slides for a presentation, or anything similar, tables usually have far less impact and don't convey relationships and context well. Whether charts are the right tool for the job is a communication question. What are you trying to communicate, why, to whom, and in what context? While it perennially annoys the hell out of many in the engineering mindset, people find strategies that take these distinctions into account valuable, and that's why visual designers exist.
- PheonixPharts 3y ago
  > Charts To be clear, I'm specifically talking about pie-charts and not all charts. There are plenty of cases where a chart conveys information appropriate to the task. The relationships are visually represented in a table, the minimum table being just a vertical list. A table can be more, but it isn't required. Additionally the relationships in a table are more clearly represented in most all cases. Information density also doesn't imply that you most be conveying a lot of information, it relates to the efficiency of your use of visual space. There are no instances (aside for the other example of a clock plot) where the relationships in your data (since you don't want to use information) are not more clearly conveyed with a list then a pie chart. > and that's why visual designers exist. I've spent quite a bit of time working with and talking to visual designers and have yet to meet one who think pie-charts are an effective tool for visual communication.